6 Cancelled Horror Games That Could’ve Been Amazing!

If you haven’t played Call of Cthulhu: Dark Corners of the Earth, you’re missing out on a fantastically creepy game. It’s a re-imagining, of sorts, of Lovecraft’s 1936 novella The Shadow Over Innsmouth. It had a moderately high barrier of entry thanks to the myriad bugs that plagued it (this was before patches could remedy such issues) and a rather high difficulty, but if you’re able to look past those it’s one of the more unique survival horror games that released on the PlayStation 2.

Originally, Dark Corners of the Earth was to be a series, followed by Destiny’s End and Beyond the Mountains of Madness. Both had to be scrapped thanks to an extraordinarily long development time for Dark Corners, which took close to five years to complete. Developer Headfirst Productions was unable to find a publisher for the other two games and the studio eventually went bankrupt.

Is anyone getting really sad for what could have been, or is it just me?

Sadness

Wii exclusivity aside, Sadness had everything going for it. It took a few pages out of Silent Hill’s book of stellar horror game design by focusing on psychological horror and presenting its unique world in a black and white art style. The game touched on themes of narcolepsy, nyctophobia (a paralyzing fear of the dark) and paranoid schizophrenia — not necessarily taboo topics, but intriguing ones nonetheless.

Sadness was to take full advantage of the Wii’s remote and motion controls, and nearly every object in the environment would’ve been usable as a weapon. There was quite a lot of freedom in this aspect, as the game allowed players to break bottles to use as weapons or tear the leg off a chair to use as a club. To keep from breaking the immersion, there were no plans to incorporate an in-game menu, with all saves managed in the background, and no HUD — an idea the Silent Hill series once pioneered.

Then, like every game on this list, it was confirmed as cancelled in 2010. Hey, at least we got a trailer.

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COMMENTS

32 Comments

Pav

It is very sad how great game projects ends. Mostly because of not being money making titles. There are many more great horror games which were never released:
Deadlight – an FPS survival horror which was in development for PS2, settled on an ocean liner, the SS Hyperion. Vessel was located north of the Arctic Circle where night is extended for months. The concept for Deadlight was for the player to avoid the shadows and stay in the light, and to aggressively protect themselves against the threat that dwelled in the dark.
Redwood Falls – FPS Horror for PS3/XBOX360.
Winter – survival horror video game that was in development for the Wii.
Insane – baby of film producer Guillermo del Toro.
Campfire – PS2/XBOX survival horror that was in development in 2003 by Daydream Software.
And more…

Raziel_cz

InSANE isn’t definitely buried. Let’s hope it’ll eventually happen.

Adam Dodd

I completely forgot about Redwood Falls, I was super excited for that when it was announced.

Tomie Kawakami

Also, Silent Hill: The Box.

Pav

Resonance – XBOX & PS2 Survival Horror Game
Asylum – Horror FPS for XBOX and PS2
Carrier 2: The Next Mutation
Clive Barker’s Demonik – PS3 and Xbox360
Dead Rush – Announced in 2004 but was cancelled a few months later. Developed by Treyarch.
Possession – where you rule hordes of zombies to take over a small American town.

Adam Dodd

Illbleed II, Harker, S.T.A.L.K.E.R. 2, The Lost, Resident Evil 1.5… the list goes on and on… I think I need a hug.

NINTR

Awww, poor Adam. I’ll hug you, if you want! XD I was a huge fan of Sadness and I always wondered what happened to it. I guess I never heard that it got canned. It’s no shock, but it’s still bothersome to learn that something you really wanted will never exist. :'(

Pav

You can listen music that was composed by Arkadiusz Reikowski for Sadness. Songs are in demo version, not mastered but absolutely phenomenal. Polish game music blog “Gramuzyka” has come into possession of thirteen unreleased tracks from Sadness , proving there was actual work done on the game. This music was to be included in a demo version of the game that never saw the light of day.
Arkadiusz Reikowski also composed music for Afterfall Insanity, Two Worlds and upcoming Sacrilegium.http://uvimpaler.wordpress.com/2010/04/03/posluchaj-muzyki-z-gry-sadness/

Come Midnight – survival horror game being developed by People Can Fly, but it was canceled when the developer began work on Bulletstorm. The influence of Epic Games seems to have forced the studio to dumb down their creative product in favour of appealing to the mass market.

Adam Dodd

STOP, you’re making me sad.

Raziel_cz

I’m sad because Call of Cthulhu: Destiny’s End was never released. On the other side, I’m not sure if it would have been as good as Dark Corners of the Earth is, although it definitely could have been really innovative at that time.

905Justin

the original resident evil 4 looks like it would of been a lot better than the one they went with. The series started going down hill with that game

InFlamesOfBirchmen

Man, Sadness was the title that made me buy a Wii…

Adam Dodd

REALLY? I’m so sorry to hear that…

InFlamesOfBirchmen

Me too. The only game I have for it is the Metroid Prime Trilogy. Still worth it.

Adam Dodd

No Dead Space: Extraction? That game is really good.

Slasher716

Capcom should just kill Resident Evil. Resident evil sucks period.

Adam Dodd

Are you not a fan of Resident Evil as it is today, or just in general?

Slasher716

As it is today,

I loved the first three Resident Evil games. After that, I believe the franchise as a whole (movies included) to have ruined the name of Resident Evil. This is just my opinion- please don’t take any of it to heart.

I also believe that “The Evil Within” is the true successor to Resident Evil.

Rick-Taylor

I’ve never heard of the Evil Within before. Why do you say it’s the true successor to Resident Evil?

Pav

The Thing 2 – The Thing was a third person survival horror game, based to John Carpenter’s 1982 film The Thing. It was developed by Computer Artworks and released for PS2, XBOX and PC in 2002. A sequel, The Thing 2, was in development by the same team, but it was later cancelled when the company closed down.

Adam Dodd

… are you trying to make me cry?

Pav

Of course. I don’t want to cry alone.

Pav

Harker – game being developed for the PlayStation 3 & Xbox 360 by Double Helix Games. Studio put the game on indefinite hold for the development of Silent Hill: Homecoming. Whether or not they plan to continue production of the game is unclear at this point.

Pav

Agartha – horror adventure that was planned by the French developer No Cliche for the Sega Dreamcast. Development began in 2000.
Game promised to have an interesting plot and gameplay: During the winter of 1929 in a Romanian village that was partially destroyed by a landslide that occurred during a mysterious earthquake, a subterranean city exists called Agartha. This is where evil is being kept prisoner and is desperate to escape. Kirk the human hero will encounter a series of characters from villages, the living dead, fanatics from an evil sect, monsters, demons, solider monks, priests, archangels and the Sentinel who is the ultimate personification of evil. As Kirk you can decide to save as many innocent people as possible or to trigger the arrival of chaos on earth. As Kirk’s morals waver between good and evil, this ambiguity changes the aims of the adventure and the narration of the story.
However in 2001, Sega went out of the console business…

KidNickles

DCotE was ORIGINALLY released on Xbox, with a follow up on the PS2…

Pav

Call Of Cthulhu DCotE was released on XBOX and PC…

ThunderDragoon

Damn, I would’ve LOVED to get that RE4 instead of the one we got. That was a big mistake of them to not go through with it. Making the choice to make the one we have was definitely the reason why the RE franchise is where it’s at right now. They only have themselves to blame for the money they’re losing. Ugh, it pisses me off.

Rick-Taylor

I’m all for the DLC and sequel to Splatterhouse. It was supposed to carry on from the end of the game, but, oh well. I think I have more hope for Campfire. There’s just something about being a slasher and taking out college aged people for their stupidity.

BWAShotgun

I would love to play both Resident Evil and Sadness, I’ve got more interesting titles to play though.
And Resident Evil 4 is the best RE ever.